At the core, I'm fascinated by what it means to be human, and I try to study that in as many ways as I can: philosophy, science, art, mathematics, religion, myth, history, politics, and whatever else looks interesting. Along the way, I hope to tell a few good jokes and stories, do a few good deeds, make a few good things, and love a few good people.

About Me

I am the original Speaker to Managers, having earned the title working for Tektronix, Inc. in the 1980's and '90s. Accept no substitutes. I also worked for GemStone Systems, and am a member in good standing of the ex-GemStone Association.

I'm recently retired, and spending my time trying to decide how to spend my time. It will probably turn out to be some mix of photography, making mathematical art, and writing science fiction. Previously I was a professional software engineer, amateur photographer, and occasional poet and artist. I've been a soldier, a peace-marcher, an assembly-line worker, a video studio technician, and an apprentice integrated circuit designer. I've worked in a medical school, a large electronics company, and several high-tech startups. I've raised dogs and children (no success at all with tropical fish). I've never been a short order cook, but I was a lunch counter attendant for a day. I'm politically Left, technically Object-Oriented, religiously idiosyncratic, and geographically Left Coast. I know where the bodies are buried.

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Friday, January 29, 2010

My aunt, Eve Arnold, will be 98 years old in April. For more than 50 years she was a photojournalist and professional portrait photographer, the first woman to become a partner in Magnum, the photographers' cooperative, and a life-long friend of Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom I hold to be one of the three or four best photographers of the 20th Century. I mention all this because there are several retrospective shows of Eve's work at the moment, and some of her books are being reprinted; I'd like more people to see how good a photographer she was, and how amazing a person. The title link of this post will take you to gallery of her photos at Magnum. This link will take you to a portrait of her taken by Cartier-Bresson a little over 10 years ago. Eve has a Wikipedia page, if you're interested in more about her life and works.

Eve was hired in the 1950's to take publicity photos of Marilyn Monroe and they became friends. Eve published a book of photographs of Monroe, and became Monroe's preferred photographer as well. She's published a number of other books of her photographs; I highly recommend in particular "The Unretouched Woman" (unfortunately out of print, but the paperback can be found in used bookstores), whose photographs illustrate the lives and surroundings of women all over the world, and which has an introduction in which Eve talks about how she became a photographer and what her work means to her.

I haven't seen Eve in many years (she moved to England in the 1960's and has resided there since), but she has been a role model of mine since I was a teenager, not least because she encouraged me to try photography, which has remained a source of joy to me to this day. I have been very lucky in knowing many women, some of them my relatives, who have chosen their paths to suit their own abilities and desires. Eve is high on that list.

I have 3 Joan Osborne albums on my iPhone; the other day I realized that I hadn't listened to most of the songs on them recently (All Songs Shuffle does seem to get stuck in a rut). So I set the 'Phone to shuffle all of Osborne's songs, and have been listening to them while driving. Some of those performances are like a body blow: they get to your gut and make you take notice. If you don't know her, or only know her for "One of Us", the theme song for the "Joan of Arcadia" TV show, then I recommend you check her out. If you can listen to "Heart of Stone", "Running Out of Time", or "Safety in Numbers" without being moved, check your pulse because you just might be dead.